Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

The comic depicts a Jewish Passover Seder. In the opening panel, a man at the head of the table explains the traditional meaning of the bitter herbs (maror): "We eat these bitter herbs to remember the bitter tears and suffering of our bondage in Egypt." Hebrew text is visible, grounding the scene in the actual Seder liturgy. Other family members participate in the ritual meal.

As the Seder progresses, the family members begin to have very modern reactions to the food. Someone comments that they feel like food has gotten so high quality that it is hard to suffer through the bitter herbs as intended. Another observes that the quality of Seder food has improved so much over time that eating "bitter" herbs from a nice grocery store does not really convey suffering anymore. The final panel delivers the punchline: frustrated that the traditional suffering is no longer being achieved through the meal, someone declares, "We eat here to suffer as our ancestors suffered" -- implying they need to find a new way to make the experience genuinely unpleasant, perhaps by going to a bad restaurant instead.

The Humor

The comedy comes from the tension between the Seder's purpose -- to viscerally re-experience the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt -- and the comfortable modern reality of the people performing it. When your "bitter herbs" come from Whole Foods and your Seder meal is catered, it is hard to feel genuine hardship. The comic plays on the universal experience of religious rituals whose symbolic meaning has been undermined by modern comfort and affluence. It is a warmly Jewish joke in the tradition of self-aware humor about how prosperity can make it difficult to maintain traditions rooted in suffering.

References

The Passover Seder is the ritual meal held on the first night (or first two nights, in the Diaspora) of Passover, commemorating the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt. The Haggadah, the text read during the Seder, prescribes eating bitter herbs (maror) to recall the bitterness of slavery. The Hebrew text visible in the comic appears to be excerpts from the Haggadah.